San Francisco's third city-wide round of elections under instant runoff voting were a success. Multiple instant runoffs yielded majority winners in two hotly contested District Supervisor races. Exit polls in one District showed a high percentage of voters cast multiple rankings, with low voter error.

66% of Asian-American voters in District 4 found IRV "helpful," partly because it guaranteed that majority-Asian American district could elect a candidate of choice. The support of Asian American voters was divided among four Asian American candidates in the first round of counting. It nearly was the first IRV election in San Francsico where the first-choice leader did not win in the end; a non-Asian candidate finished a very close second in the first choice
count. Such reversals don't happen very often, but when they do, it means a plurality winner would have triumphed over a fractured majority without IRV.

The
Public Research Institute of San Francisco State University this month
released a comprehensive analysis of exit polls during San Francisco's
first citywide instant runoff election in 2005. Voters were three times
more likely to say voting with instant runoff voting (IRV) was easy than it was difficult, and
preferred IRV over the old two-round runoff system by a margin of three
to one -- support that extended to every group of voters as defined by
party, race, gender, age and neighborhood. Other analyses have shown
almost no voter error and much higher turnout than would have taken place with the
old runoff system.

Among the report's findings:- Even though nearly half went to the polls not knowing they were
going to use the system, only 2.7% found it "very difficult". Understanding of the system was very high. A
majority said they understood IRV "perfectly well", 86% said at least
fairly well and only 3% said not at all.- African American voters were the most likely to rank three
people in the contested assessor-recorder race. Of those saying it
was easy to rank three candidates (about three times
those saying it was difficult), the highest percentages for saying it
was easy were those with less than high school degrees, and a higher percentage of African Americans than whites.

An exit poll commissioned by the City and carried out by the Public
Research Institute at San Francisco State University indicates that a
large majority understands and prefers the newly-instituted IRV
election system. Some key figures:

Only 13% of respondents would like to go back to the old two-round runoff system.

87% said that they understood instant runoff voting.

No more than 23% of any one racial and ethnic group reported not
understanding IRV--despite the fact that a big turnout presidential
race brings out a lot of new voters and people who skip over races for
the Board of Supervisors.

New America Foundation Political Reform Program Deputy Director Blair Bobier advocates for instant runoff voting as a way to cut the cost of elections in San Jose in half, as IRV would only require one election.

California Instant Runoff Voting Coalition is
an action-oriented site that is campaigning for more of the successful
local ballot measures in California (like Oakland, Santa Clara County
and San Leandro County) as well as state legislation.